


Empathy

by likethenight



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethenight/pseuds/likethenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the sort of upbringing he had, Charles Xavier was never really going to be naturally good at empathy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empathy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sasha_b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/gifts).



> When a world-class telepath is thinking hard in the back of your mind, it's rather hard to get him to shut up...so here's a rather rambly character study of Charles Xavier. Contains all manner of spoilers for the movie.  
> Dedicated to sasha_b.

It's easy, looking back with the wisdom of years, to see where you went wrong. Hindsight is, after all, as the saying would have it, twenty-twenty and crystal clear. But you didn't know at the time. For all your intellect, for all your telepathy, you really had a lot to learn about people.

But then it was only to be expected. An only child, raised in fabulous wealth, its accompanying grand old tradition of philanthropy and, for the most part, benign neglect, your mother and stepfather didn't even bat an eyelid when you insisted that they adopt the strange little girl you'd found in the kitchen that night. She was hungry and alone, you had food and a nice house and everything she could ever need. It wasn't difficult for you to do the math. _It will be nice for Charles to have a companion_ , you heard them thinking, and thus it was done. You had a sister. Everything you wanted was yours. You were never going to be naturally good at empathy.

Oxford was the same. You were rich, you were staggeringly intelligent, a genius a cut above the rest in a city stuffed to the rafters with them. You were undeniably rubbish at flirting, but it didn't really matter. Money has its way of making itself known, its own innate charm, even when the person showing it hasn't the right words at his disposal.

And then all of a sudden, you were a professor, you were working for the CIA, and you were meeting others like you - well, not _exactly_ like you, but mutants nevertheless. You were meeting people who had not had the easy ride of it that you had, and you didn't understand their pain.

But then, you'd had practice at that already. You'd never understood Raven either. Couldn't get your superior intellect around her hangup with her looks; well, of course nobody would look at her twice with her blue skin and yellow eyes, but she covered it up with blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty and even as her brother, you always thought she was stunning. Not in _that_ way, of course, but then you were her brother, you weren't qualified to comment.

Philanthropy and altruism came easily to you, as easily as breathing, the only logical way of looking at the world; it took you a long time to realise that not everyone saw things in the same way as you. Not everyone had that drive to help their fellows, mutant and human, to be "the better men" in character as well as in powers. You thought it would be so simple, build a team, help save the world, receive the gratitude of the people and continue to serve and protect them ad infinitum. It was so logical when you thought about it.

But there was a lot you didn't understand about human nature, from your position of privilege. And there was one person who brought that home to you very forcefully indeed. One person who showed you that some people cannot bear to be altruistic; some people have been through too much, seen too many horrors, ever to regard his fellow man with anything other than suspicion, fear and anger.

Erik. From that first moment, there in the freezing water, you felt such a kinship, such a bond with him, instant and all-enduring. _You are not alone_ , you told him, but it felt almost as though you were saying it to yourself. And it was _intense_ , so strong you could almost taste it with the salt water in your mouth as you held onto him and pleaded with him and yelled to the people on the boat to pick you up.

You didn't know, then. You didn't look until later, to see who he was. You've learned not to do that now, learned to keep your distance until people invite you in, but back then you went gaily blundering in, reading people's fears and histories, blowing their covers with careless words, assuming people already knew - you really were terrible with people in those days, weren't you? It was Erik who knew what to say, how to reassure the kids who were unhappy about their appearance, how to inspire them to make the most of their gifts.

You didn't know, until later, that his objectives were not the same as yours.

When you looked into his mind and saw what he'd seen, what he'd been through at the hands of that fraud of a doctor, the men who were _only following orders_ , you didn't realise at first what it had done to him. You thought that there was infinite capacity for good in everyone, infinite powers of recovery, of healing. Your naïvety (or was it arrogance, really? the assumption that everyone was like you?) makes you laugh, now, in rueful, bitter regret. You thought you could unlock that one bright happy memory of his mother, give him that place between rage and serenity, and it would somehow fix him, give him access to the full extent of his powers and heal him of his pain, his anger, his need for revenge. You thought that you could keep him with you, like you'd kept Raven all those years ago, your brother, bonded soul-deep, and more, so much more.

You were an idealist, then. Most would say that you still are, but you disagree. You have always believed in the fundamental goodness of mankind. It might have proved you wrong, time and again, but you still retain that belief, that faith. You still retain it for Erik, too. You have no choice, for to give up on him would be to give up on everything.

There is always faith. There is always hope. Erik thinks that his own hope was destroyed, long ago, and you have tried - how you have tried - to show him that it doesn't have to be that way; but on that point, as on so many others, the two of you will never see eye to eye. He is too damaged, too broken and scarred, even to allow the thought the tiniest foothold in his mind. Perhaps he is afraid that if he lets go of his convictions, his whole world will fall apart. You have tried so hard to make him see that you would always be there, to help him build a new world from the pieces of the old one, but he won't let you in any more. He shut you out when he murdered Shaw, avenging himself on his creator in cold, cold blood, and you realised that you didn't really know him at all. You'd spent a few weeks getting to know each other, and of course you'd taken an uninvited, access-all-areas tour of his mind, and you'd thought he was different, you'd thought he was like you, but he shattered that illusion for you good and proper.

The two of you had had so much fun, out on the road, looking for mutants to recruit. You'd been hoping to do that again, to bring more to join your team and, if you admitted it to yourself, to spend more time with Erik, just the two of you, out on the road away from the mansion, away from the world, just you. You'd hoped to become closer to him, to gain his trust, to get him to let you in properly; you had so much faith in him, such a deep and intense bond waiting to be explored. And then - all that snatched away, that future cut off, severed by a single bullet, deflected from its intended trajectory.

You can't bring yourself to hate him for that, or for any of it. You tried, at first, your disappointment and anger rising up in a tide of frustration as you began to come to terms with the fact that you would in all probability never walk again. But the hatred wouldn't come. You don't have it in you to hate. And your convalescence gave you a lot of time for thinking, and a lot of time for realising where you went wrong, beginning to understand why Erik acted as he did. Sifting through everything you saw in his mind, putting two and two together and learning a little empathy on the way. He made you a better man, although not in the way he would probably understand it.

Your paths crossed briefly and then diverged, and the pain of that separation is something that you think you will probably never get over, something that will never truly heal. Perhaps that is another thing that has helped you to understand him a little better. Your objectives, your opinions are polar opposites - you wish to be accepted, to blend in, to help; he believes that acceptance will never come and that to stand out and take control is the only way. Yet you will never lose hope for him. He is a worthy opponent - the most worthy - and if this game is a little bigger than the conventional chessboard, then perhaps that only makes it even more worth the playing. His attention is still on you, as yours is on him, and your faith is unshakeable that one day you will be able to sway him to your way of seeing things, bring him back to stand at your side.


End file.
